The Geek Beat:Celluloid Saturday II: Return of the Noob

Celluloid Saturdays: Let's Recycle!

welcome all to another edition of The Geek Beat, your weekly hit of crystal geek persuasion. It's been a while since we did a Celluloid Saturday - last time was when I was enjoying misadventures in Hamburg and didn't have time to write a full blog; this weekend I'm similarly engaged in activities of ill repute so it seems like the perfect time to squeeze in a rerun. 

If I had the time to write a full blog this weekend, naturally I'd be writing about the two seismic trailers that have landed last week. I was majorly impressed with the Force Awakens trailer; regular readers will know that I give the Star Wars movies a little bit of a hard time here and there - only 'cos I love 'em so much. That trailer really hit my sweet spot though and I'm suddenly a lot more excited than I anticipated becoming. I was less enthused about the Bats Vs Supes trailer that also landed - it is early days yet but the whole thing seemed to take itself so seriously that I couldn't help but be reminded of the exhausting grimness of Man of Steel. Man, that film took itself way too seriously but perhaps that's simply the tone these days - news has broken this week that even Frank Miller himself, the progenitor of the dark, gritty Batman way back in 1986's The Dark Knight Returns has returned to the fold. He's penning a theequel to his legendary DC series entitled The Master Race. Word is that this addition to his iconic saga is going to feature an ageing Carrie Kelly (Robin in the The Dark Knight Returns) meaning Bruce Wayne (who was close to daisy-pushing age in the first two books ) may play a less significant role in his own series. Which is kind of how Henry Cavill's Superman must feel for having to share his movie with Batman and the entire Justice League.  

Amidst all the madness I've also managed to squeeze in an IMAX viewing of Avengers: Age of Ultron. I won't say anything too spoilery as it hasn't even released in the States yet but for the most part it was very enjoyable. It's not without a few problems and most of the movie struggles to live up to the first few scenes but that's a blog for another day.

Anyways, onto the film school noobery. In the Celluloid Saturday editions of The Geek Beat I try and post something I've been working on of late along with an archived blog from when I first started getting into videography a couple of years ago. I don't have anything brand new to show at the moment; the writing side of things has kept me busy lately although not nearly as busy as the woes of real life - buuut, you can follow this link to see the last thing I worked on and finished. Enjoy.

Back? Okay - let's get down to some noobery then. Cue me, two years ago:

Week 3

Sherlock Holmes once said: 'These are very deep waters indeed' and although I can't fully remember what he was referring to, I'm pretty sure he wasn't talking about commercial video production. The character did exist through the creation of the telephone and the motor vehicle but didn't quite stretch to the video camera. But, pointless digression aside, he was correct as usual because these are deep waters indeed, for me at least. Sound is the topic today, something I until very recently knew very little about apart from the fact that like (some) water, it travels in waves. But so do Space Invaders and I know more about them than sound...

After Tuesday's class and some subsequent research I feel a little more comfortable with some of the terminology and concepts that surround sound (lol) such as microphone selection and placement; venue/environment setting and ideal decibel ranges. I have to admit that I never thought that a surplus of soft furnishings could adversely affect sound quality by 'deadening' the sound waves within a space but according to Television Production this can be the case. The shotgun mic seems to be the most versatile (or at least, most widely used) of the sound apparatus that we examined and I'm looking forwards to getting my hands on one in the near future and having a chance to experiment. 

Moving around the college on Tuesday, aiming to take a range of shots building on the previous week's work was much more familiar territory. We may not have got as many shots and angles as the other group but I was pleased with our commitment to following other elements that we've studied rather than simply just stacking up shots: exposure, framing, focus and composition. We performed white balances, continually considered the rule of thirds and came away with a few shots, a couple of which were visually impressive. At least to this noob anyway! I enjoyed the task and the work processes, the other two guys seem to have a similar outlook to me which is reassuring. 

One thing did come up in discussion on the shoot that I hadn't really considered and has been weighing on my mind for the rest of the week. Anybody that knows me will attest that for years now I've 'suffered' with Shaky Hand Syndrome to various degrees. No matter how much I avoid caffeine and (try to) live healthily it seems to come and go at will. Having listened to Scott's experiences over the last few weeks I don't think I'd considered just how much handheld camera work I might be expected to do. At the moment I'm not even sure whether these tiny tremors would even register BUT the camera is such a sensitive instrument I'm pretty sure it would be noticeable. I know I'm making light of it but it is something that concerns me a little.

Maybe I'll build an exoskeleton steadicam rig that I'll have fused permanently to my body; I'll look like Matt Damon in Elysium but with more hair and cameras.

If that's what it takes...

Anyway. Thanks for reading, that's all from The Noob this week.

Week 4

No puns about how illuminating the whole experience was but in all seriousness, this week's lecture on lighting was like finding the gates of Shangri La: there was a point when I was looking at the viewing panel before we made a few adjustments to the three-lighting system (more on that later) including turning on the Fill light; I looked back a moment later and the transformation was pretty amazing. I know that my vocabulary can be prone to occasional bouts of hyperbole but I'm not exaggerating when I say that in my (limited) experience thus far, lighting is the element that most intrigues me; a simple shot of (I think it was) Mike, framed for an interview suddenly looked incredibly professional with the addition of a well-lit environment. 

Having then, seen first-hand the transformative effects that a standard three-point lighting setup can achieve I'm quite excited by the prospect of further experimentation. As well as simply providing adequate  lighting to properly shoot a subject, lighting can of course be used to create atmosphere and develop mise-en-scene. By changing the relative positions of the Key light (strong, direct lighting of the subject), the Fill light, (softer, diffused light intended to dispel some of the harsher shadows created by the Key) the Back light (the third light of the three, no less important as it allows you to separate the subject from the background - would this be of especial use in deeper focus shots?) and in some cases, Background lighting, you can achieve a wide array of subtle enhancements. It would have been nice if we would have had more time to experiment with this aspect but sadly that was not to be. Hopefully that's something we get to experience in a future class and if not I'm sure I'll be able to find an opportunity at some point...

One such moment came and went later this week; I was scheduled to shoot some green screen stuff at work with a new green screen kit I'd ordered, (only a inexpensive model, public sector budget and all that!) I'd spoken to Scott who advised me that green screen shooting was slightly different, (depending of course on the amount of lights you have available. I had three as it turned out) and that with limited lights it was prudent to light the subject but use a light purely to light the screen, chiefly to aid the keying process. As it turned out the lights were limited; so limited that they didn't work! Hopefully next week I can rig them up and have a play to look at the various achievable effects.

This week's puzzling conundrum that Scott left us with was the (fairly frequent I imagine) issue of lighting more than one subject. With lighting being such a precision procedure that is also relatively tech-heavy (I find it amusing that camerawork can require only one camera but up to three or four times the lights) the conventional wisdom decrees that one subject needing three lights equates to two subjects needing six and so on and so forth! Gladly this isn't always the case; astute lighting setups often use one light for multiple functions: for example in a two-subject shot, the Key light for one subject can also substitute as the back light for another as the diagram below illustrates:

The same is true of shots with multiple subjects where the process becomes more 'zonal' (that's NoobTalk by the way, don't quote me!) meaning that one Key covers several subjects. See below:

 **OOPS, SORRY, LOST THIS ONE!**

Whilst this is undoubtedly a good thing as it cuts down on the need for excessive lighting and therefore general overheads, (where would you store them all?) it does demonstrate just how much pre-planning needs to go into a lighting plan to ensure that every subject is it to the specifications of the shot. Despite the fact that it is a little daunting I do find the whole idea rather geekily exciting and can't wait to experiment further. Perhaps I should change the blog title to Random Notes from a Lighting Geek.

Perhaps that would be slightly premature.

Anyway, until next week. 

The Noob.

Back to 2015 me. The non-Noob? That's all for the blog this week. Be sure to head back next week for more Geek Beat awesomeness!

That's all from The Geek Beat this week folks. Any inaccuracies are a failing of my memory or bad Googling. 

Head back this way next week to see what's new with April's RETRObituary - Retro game goodness!

Until then be sure to follow me making plans and hatching schemes @vertigoDC on Twitter. Many Bothans died for those plans. But who cares about that? Also be sure to follow our journey to get a film and comic book project out to the masses @The_ANA_Project. Later!